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Monday, March 4th, 2019, 6:21 am

VERY MORNING I wake up to an unknown weather; I do get my forecast from the command line, but it’s not always reliable. There’s also reliably-aggregated (historical) data; or data points that, no matter one’s views on the subject of global warming, speak for themselves.

Extreme weather is becoming more frequent. Sometimes the poles ‘travel’ down south and the poles themselves can heat up like never before; there’s a lot more to it than melting icecaps (media likes to focus on sea levels) because unpredictable weather and erratic seasonal patterns harm farmers and crops, threatening famine (or soaring food prices); this makes mass migration and war more likely. Probably more likely than rising sea levels (this can cause floods and stronger storms, like the ones just experienced in the US south, notable for their fatalities).

War, suffice to say, further contributes to warming, especially if and when nuclear weapon are used, not just produced.

The above photo was taken in February back when the temperature reached nearly 20 here. Yes, 20 in Manchester. In February. That’s winter.

I’ve lived in this city for nearly 20 years. Last month was the first time I bought fans.

Monday, March 4th, 2019, 6:02 am

esterday, for the first time in months, Manchester City returned to the top of the league’s table (and not because it had played an extra game). The team is now in a good position to secure a third trophy, the most prestigious of all (league/PL), and is well positioned to advance further in the Champions League too. What remains other than those two prestigious cups is the FA Cup, which has no major teams left it in except Manchester United and Manchester City. So this can be another interesting year with Manchester taking all the trophies (Community Shield included) and maybe Manchester City alone will net them. It also seems increasingly likely that the northwest (England) will secure the top 3 spots in the league for the second year in a row.

At the start of the season it seemed highly improbable that Manchester City would break yet more important records; it never won a Champions League either; didn’t even reach the final. Time will tell what can happen (over the next 3 months)…

It is a good time to be a Manchester City fan and Manchester United too seems to have found solid new leadership.

Sunday, February 17th, 2019, 2:32 pm

The people who proudly frame Assange, intentionally making claims they know to be false so as to ‘punish’ (or scare) Ecuadorian officials close to Assange

Pence and Moreno agree to facilitate the extradition of the asylee

OYCOTT the Guardian has been a thing or a meme or a hashtag for a number of years if not decades, but I only really started bycotting the publication (entirely) back in November after it had libeled Assange one more time — the last straw. It wasn’t the first time and it’s clear what they’re hoping to achieve, even at the expense of the publication’s (yes, as a whole) reputation.

I took a break from following and covering Assange affairs — and by extension Wikileaks — about a month ago. I changed my mind after the media had once again brought up Trump Jr. and Roger Stone, exploiting the fact that they were contacted/responded to around the time of the US election in 2016. It was a mistake to respond to them as those eager enough would distort any form of contact, establishing that as a “connection” or “collusion”. Each time RT or Sputnik contacted me (several times each) I did not even respond. They invited me to TV interviews, but I know how guilt by association works, so I very rarely take photos with anyone or appear on other people’s platforms (it gets one stigmatised).

At the moment there’s an unfortunately effective effort to isolate Wikileaks and discourage people from associating with it (let alone consider submitting leaks to it). But yet worse is the fact that Assange quite likely lives in the embassy (the Ecuadorian Embassy in London) on “borrowed time”. Seeing how the press constantly libels him for purely political purposes has taught me what I need to know about averting bad publicity.

I used to communicate with Julian Assange and I have a good/amicable relationship with his mother. She is a passionate supporter of her son’s work, but it breaks her heart to see him broken physical, emotionally and perhaps (ultimately) mentally.

When the media connects Wikileaks to Russia it conveniently overlooks all the Russia-hostile tweets from Wikileaks and even the Russian leaks. It likes to mention RT, noting that some series with Wikileaks staff in it was licensed to RT about a decade ago (it had appeared elsewhere too, not just RT). When the media connects Wikileaks to Trump it typically boils down to Trump operatives who falsely claimed to be associated with/connected to Assange. They’re liars, frauds, and crooks. Their appalling character is a liability to Wikileaks, but they enjoy all the media attention. It adds value to them.

My guess is that within a year or two there won’t be much left of Wikileaks (new material) and Assange will be somewhere in the US, likely behind bars because fair trial is not possible. Exposing the rich and powerful isn’t easy. Wikileaks will always be proof of that. It shows what happens when one becomes affective at lawfully challenging/exposing empire (nonviolently too).

Friday, January 18th, 2019, 6:25 pm

ARGE football clubs such as Manchester City (MCFC) are owned by billionaires to whom human rights may not mean very much. Manchester City is a great club that we support, but it is digitally a disgrace, Adobe Flash and Microsoft aside (their Windows-powered site has always been terrible, slow, and inaccessible to many). But today I found out that it is actually a lot worse. The awfulness goes well beyond the site itself.

They are spying on people, selling their data, spamming them without prior approval, then making the “unsubscribe” form intentionally broken. I tried it in 3 mainstream Web browsers, on 3 different PCs, and the buttons are not clickable. It’s usually not a coincidence; slimy companies like these do not want people to opt out and definitely not delete their accounts with associated data.

Manchester City has a really large turnover; there’s no excuse for this sellout to a malicious ‘industry’.

Friday, December 7th, 2018, 6:56 pm

eonie Brinkema, appointed by Bill Clinton, works in a kangaroo court; it’s widely notorious for a rubberstamping-like behaviour in a variety of deeply political cases. “No one should have to face criminal charges for publishing truthful information,” said a letter to the editor yesterday, highlighting the nature of what some whistleblowers had done and got punished for. In exchange for them exposing crimes they got treated like criminals and this is more or less the job of Leonie Brinkema, protecting criminals by putting in prison those who spoke about these crimes. I don’t know Leonie Brinkema personally and it’s not even simply to find a simple photo of her face (drawings are out there and she looks a lot more furious in them).

It is expected that if (or when) Julian Assange gets ‘kidnapped’ and ‘shipped’ to the US Leonie Brinkema will be the sociopath who sentences him to death (or prison until death) for merely exposing the crimes of people like those who appointed her. What a crazy world we live in. They call it “justice”, but to those who set this court up it’s “just us”.

Tuesday, November 6th, 2018, 6:01 pm

EVERAL months ago Gab banned my account which posted GNU/Linux news. It had many followers and said nothing provocative. No explanation was ever given for the ban. Nothing. Not even when asked. Repeatedly. They just zapped the account without warning. Then they pretended nothing happened, hoping nobody would notice that Gab is in fact a censorship platform.

Recently the site was offline for a week after a terror attack. The terrorist maintained a Gab account. Gab kept telling the media that it’s really just standing up for “free speech”, but that’s obviously a lie. It’s a fat lie. Torba is a liar and he knows he’s a liar. He’s just trying to profit from hate.

The site came back online just over a day ago and within a day my personal account got banned. I had many followers (about a thousand) and tens of thousands of gabs (mostly left-leaning and technical stuff). Did I post something obscene or offensive? No. Just some left-leaning news.

One therefore must conclude that the site isn’t just an echo chamber for radicals and sometimes terrorists. It’s a site that actively protects radicals (and sometimes terrorists) from opposing views. And that’s dangerous. Very dangerous. Gab is quickly becoming another Daily Stormer and at one point I received almost a dozen death threats and death wishes in just one day.

Since Gab has proven itself to be a censorship site (even twice in my case alone), it does not have the right to bemoan censorship. If the site is shut down forcibly and permanently, so be it. They cannot complain (calling it “censorship”) because gross censorship is exactly what these people do and we know in whose favour: violent, racist radicals. If you’re not one of them, then that might upset them and sooner or later you might get banned. Permanently.